User:Anotheronewiki/sandbox
| Year | Most-aired video | Runners up |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Esthero's "Heaven Sent" |
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| 1999 | The Pet Shop Boys' "New York City Boy" |
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| 2000 | Fiona Apple's "Fast as You Can" |
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| 2001 | Dido's "Thankyou" |
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| 2002 | Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" |
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| 2003 | Telepopmusik's "Breathe" |
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| 2004 | Bowling for Soup's "1985" |
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| 2005 | Esthero's "We R In Need of a Musical Revolution" |
|
Background
[edit]1998
[edit]NTV went on-air on July 29, 1998, on OnTheAir, the country's third-largest cable provider, reaching about 6,200 households. A week later, NTV brokered a deal with CleanerAir, the country's second-largest cable provider, and was added to their directory on September 1, expanding the network's audience to about 18,000 households. For the month of September, the channel was the fifth most-watched, according to MediaCount. The next month, October, the network fell to number 6 on the list, where it remained for November. In December, thanks in part to their holiday-themed programming and year-end countdown shows, the network rose three places to number 3 on MediaCount's list. The station was the 6th most-viewed (out of 8) for 1998.
On Saturday, September 26, the station aired its first national-premiere advertisement: Mazda's "Cool World" advert, which features The Nails' new wave classic "88 Lines About 44 Women." The advertisement was viewed by an estimated 12,000 people in its first run, and was played at least ten times each day until early 1999.
The most-played video that year was Esthero's "Heaven Sent." It was in rotation from the network's start, and was the fourth video played on the channel. From August 5 to December 30, the video received 360, averaging play three times per day. The video spent six weeks atop NTV's most-played chart, from August 12 to September 16, when it was ousted by The New Radicals' "You Get What You Give," which placed at number 2 on the year-end countdown. "Heaven Sent" received at least 25 plays a week (the minimum for "high rotation") every week until March 3, 1999, more than six months after its first play on the channel. It peaked at number 2 on the singles chart. Two videos in the top 10 never got to number 1 on the rotation chart: Imani Coppola's "I'm a Tree," which spent two weeks at number 2, and Bjork's "Hunter," which spent one week at number 2.
1999
[edit]In January 1999, NTV signed a deal with LightAir, the country's largest cable provider, thus expanding the number of households with NTV to 32,000, nearly half of the households in the country. For the month of June, the station ranked at number 2 on the station rankings, just behind Go!News in terms of viewership. It spent every month of 1999 in the top 5 for viewership rankings; it didn't exit the top 5 until September 2001. The station was the 5th most-viewed (out of 9) of 1999.
1999's most-aired video was the Pet Shop Boys' "New York City Boy," which didn't go into rotation until October but received ultra-high rotation (at least 35 plays a week) from October 13 until December 22. It received 378 plays during 1999, spending seven weeks atop the rotation chart. (The single also went to number 1 on the singles chart, thanks in large part to its high rotation). Also notable was the presence of Esthero's "That Girl," which received 405 plays during the tracking period (it premiered on the network on July 2). It had spent two weeks atop the rotation chart and appeared in TV ads for the network. It gave Esthero her first number 1 on the singles chart, where it spent one week at the summit. ChartGuard speculated that the single wouldn't have broken the top 10 if it weren't for the network's heavy rotation of the video. Every song in the top 10 year-end countdown spent at least 1 week atop the rotation chart, except for Oleander's "Why I'm Here," which spent three weeks at number 3 on the chart.
2000
[edit]The station was voted the country's "coolest TV station" by Around Here magazine. A ceremony was aired on the network, featuring appearances from Esthero and Imani Coppola. Plus!Cable added the network to their directory, adding approximately 500 households to the viewership count. The station was the second-most-viewed in July and December of that year; ChartGuard posited that it was due to teens watching the channel while school was out. It was the 4th most-viewed network (out of 11) of the year.
Fiona Apple's "Fast as you Can" was the year's most-aired video, accumulating 485 plays over the course of the year. It had spent the first three weeks of the year at number 1 on the rotation chart, and spent a nonconsecutive total of five weeks at number 1. Apple appeared as a guest-host on the station's year-end countdown as a thank-you. Macy Gray's "I Try" was the year's second most-aired video, boasting more than 430 plays over the course of the year. It spent four consecutive weeks atop the NTV rotation chart, in May and June of 2000.
2001
[edit]Following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centers, NTV experienced tumbling viewership as TV viewers turned to the news stations; as a result, the station fell out of the top 5 stations in terms of viewership for September, October, and November. It regained its footing and was the third-most-watched station in December; it ranked 6th for the most-viewed network (out of 10) of the year.
The station's most-played video of the year was Dido's "Thank You", which spent eight weeks atop the rotation chart in February, March, and April of 2000; it had accumulated nearly 1,000 spins by year's end. The second most-played video of the year was the Ian Pooley/Esthero collaboration "Balmes (A Better Life)", which was the most-played video of September, October, and November of that year; despite having fewer than 4 months in rotation before year's end, it managed to accumulate more than 600 spins before the end of the year.
2002
[edit]In January 2002, NTV introduced news programming into its lineup. Their news shows were Extra! Extra!, which aired from 10 AM to noon on weekdays, and Connection, which aired from 9 PM to 11 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reaction to the station's programming shift was fairly mixed. More than 1,100 viewers of the station drew up a petition begging the station to retain its focus on music, while Money & the Times anchor Luke Baker remarked that "the people who watch NTV don't care about the news, and people who watch the news won't want to endure the station's 'hipper-than-thou,' artsy video bend just to find out what's going on in the world."
Following the backlash, Viacom rolled out plans to introduce a rival entertainment network, Cheart (pronounced "chart"), in autumn of 2002. NTV's ratings never rose above 2,500 viewers for the news programming. On February 10, they cancelled Extra! Extra!, after less than a month on air. They also scaled back on Connection, scheduling it only for Tuesday nights, although they made the program three hours long, now airing from 9 PM to midnight. (The show has since consistently garnered between 6,000 and 8,000 viewers per episode.)
Despite these concessions, the station's viewership was at its lowest levels in over a year, with only about 9,000 viewers watching for at least 30 minutes each day, and only 5,000 watching for more than an hour. In March, the station placed at number 6 on the station rankings; it fell to number 8 (out of 11) in April. To combat the falling ratings, NTV partnered with Mitsubishi Motors to have exclusive national rights to their new advertisements: on Friday April 5, at 6 PM, the company's "Days Go By" ad premiered on the channel; it was viewed by an estimated 38,000 people. The ad received play two times per hour for the remained of April, and continued to receive heavy airplay until September. The station was the most-watched in April - the first time in NTV's history that it topped the tally - and remained in the top 3 for the remainder of the year. It placed at number 4 (out of 10) on ChartGuard's list of most-viewed stations of the year.
The year's most-aired video was Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles," which had received more than 1,000 spins since its premier on the channel in early March. It still ranks in the top 10 for the station's most-played music videos, with a lifetime record of more than 2,500 spins. Carlton also appeared in the top 10 with follow-up hit "Ordinary Day," which had debuted at number 1 on the station's airplay chart in May of that year. Dirty Vegas's "Days Go By" - from the Mitsubishi advertisement - ranked in the top 5 most-played videos of the year, as well, and P!nk and Moby each received more than 600 spins over the course of the year with their videos: "Don't Let Me Get Me" and "We Are All Made of Stars," respectively.
2003
[edit]On January 9, 2003, the station premiered a second Mitsubishi advert: "Breathe," featuring a song of the same name by French electronica trio Telepopmusik. The advert was widely publicized in advance, and was viewed by an estimated 40,000 people, making it one of the most-viewed advert premiers in the country's history. The station continued to enjoy steady viewership in 2003, earning the distinction of most-viewed TV station of January 2003 and ranking in the top 3 every month of the year; ChartGuard estimated that the station was viewed by at least two-thirds of the country's inhabitants for at least two hours over the course of the year.
The year's most-aired video was Telepopmusik's "Breathe," topping the video play chart for six weeks in February and March of 2003. The video had accumulated more than 900 plays by year's end. Vanessa Carlton also managed a double-appearance in the top 10: "Pretty Baby," her follow-up to "A Thousand Miles" and "Ordinary Day," ranked at number 3, while her Counting Crows collaboration "Big Yellow Taxi" (a cover of the Joni Mitchell classic) placed at number 5; Carlton became the first-ever artist (and only, until Taylor Swift in 2014 & 2015) to have two year-end top 10 appearances in back-to-back years. (Carlton's album, Be Not Nobody, remains one of the country's best-selling records, with nine platinum certifications.)
2016
[edit]On December 26, 2016, the station aired an all-day special titled "The 100 Best Videos EVER!" The videos included were:
- Dido's "Thankyou"
- The Cure's "Close to Me"
- Blondie's "Rapture"
- The B-52's "Legal Tender"
- Imani Coppola's "Legend of a Cowgirl"
- Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles"
- Esthero's "Heaven Sent"
- Natalie Imbruglia's "Big Mistake"
- Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U"
- Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out"
- Garbage's "Push It"
- Esthero's "Heaven Sent"
- Joan Jett's "Everyday People"
- Imani Coppola's "I'm a Tree"
- Pet Shop Boys' "West-End Girls"
- The Eurythmics' "(I Love Listening to) Beethoven"
- Godley & Creme's "Cry"
- Foster the People's "Don't Stop"
- Bjork's "Alarm Call"
- Madonna's "What It Feels Like for a Girl"
- Skye Sweetnam's "Tangled Up in Me"
The special was successful, with more than 35,000 viewers tuning in for at least one hour of the broadcast, and more than 60,000 viewers watching it for at least fifteen minutes. Many critics praised the special, with Radar praising it as "possibly the greatest music special of this decade."
However, the ranking drew backlash from some music critics, who opined that too many of the top-ranking videos were too recent. Melissa Montgomery, writing in the Truth, opined that "the mark of a great video is its legacy: do people refer to it or imitate it decades after it came out? Is it timeless? [....] When a video's less than 20 years old, it's extremely difficult to gauge whether anyone's going to care about it in the future." Other critics echoed her objections. In an essay, also published in the Truth the following week, NTV producer and VJ Marc Topher defended the rankings, writing "critics seem to forget that [music] videos aren't an old medium, either: they are barely four decades old. Going by the 'seniority' logic, Beethoven, Moms Mabley, and 'Disco Duck' should both rank higher than Dido. The mark of a good music video is not necessarily its legacy; plenty of good videos - including many of our selections, like 'Big Mistake' and 'Legal Tender' - are wrongly overlooked by critics. No, there is no one measure for a music video's goodness. Each video has its own criteria: Does it tell a story? Does it showcase the artist's talent? Did a lot of thought go into the video? Does the video make me want to laugh, dance, or cry? All three? It's arbitrary to rank all videos according to the same criteria, and it's nonsensical to suppose that videos are somehow better simply because they came out longer ago. Do we apply that logic to our computers or our furniture? Yes, there are lots of amazing old videos, and we duly recognized that: every single video in the top 20 is over a decade old, and in the top 10, half of the videos were released in the '80s. So one decade occupies half of the top 10. The critics have a point, though -- the ratio was off. Next time, let's have fewer old videos!"